Key activity indicators of successful companies

What makes successful companies different? What a great research question, and one that the University of Strathclyde posited a couple years back. They followed up with 37 companies, in 8 EU countries and gathered over 1,000 stories (interview descriptions of processes and activities). Catherine Maguire from Strathclyde was presenting their findings. They began with the… Continue reading Key activity indicators of successful companies

Pleasure vs Pain

David Gilroy from Conscious Solutions nailed it at a Bristol Enterprise Network event last week when asked what changes he was making to his product to sell better in a recession. “Absolutely none”. The pitch to clients is changing, however, from how a great website can enhance your offering to one that points out how… Continue reading Pleasure vs Pain

Education shaped & Bristol Fashion

Disclosure: This was originally published on TechCrunch UK, I’ve made some edits at the end in response to comment on TC, Underscore, Twitter etc. Its not all stovepipe hats and clay dogs in Bristol, these days its more location aware gaming, mobile media and building businesses. As a relative newcomer to the city (5yrs and… Continue reading Education shaped & Bristol Fashion

What’s the BizIdea?

[Disclosure: I attended in my role as Flagship Initiative Adviser for Knowledge West, we have the Knowledge West Enterprise Awards, which brings together competitors from the 6 University Business Plan competitions in the area. However, I’m not on that judging panel, nor this one, and my views here are not those of Knowledge West.] After… Continue reading What’s the BizIdea?

Celebrating failure

Disclosure: As well as Managing Partner of jbsh LLP (the business behind this blog) I also work part time for the University of the West of England on the Knowledge West project managing their QuickMark® service.] Today was an important day for jbsh, I gave our first unsuccessful pitch. Obviously in writing research grant applications… Continue reading Celebrating failure

Open Coffee good in Bristol

Uploaded by suresh_gundappa on 17 Aug 06, 9.27AM BST. The nominal theme for this morning’s Open Coffee was ‘articulating your message’, or the art of the elevator pitch. Without wishing to do anyone (including myself) out of a job – go to this blog post and read it.  Actually might as well read the whole… Continue reading Open Coffee good in Bristol

Open Coffee launch details

I mentioned earlier on Twitter that I was hoping to confirm some additional support for Open Coffee, well Starbucks are getting behind us and offering free coffee, free muffins and free WiFi to attendees of Open Coffee at 9am Tuesday, 6 May. We’ll be downstairs at the Starbucks on Park Street (map). Kick off will… Continue reading Open Coffee launch details

Geeks & investors, are they oil & water? Lets mix it up a bit…

There’re a ton of networking events taking place in Bristol, but there appears to be a gap around the business of doing business in the digital media / interactive technologies / software development type area. Simon Bunker launched Open Coffee Bristol almost a year ago but it never really achieved critical mass and became a… Continue reading Geeks & investors, are they oil & water? Lets mix it up a bit…